Week Two: Immigration, Friendship, and Diversity
Questions to Consider:
What factual information did you learn? Did anything surprise you? How do you know if this information is accurate? There was a lot of factual information in Her Right Foot by Dave Eggers. Throughout the book, Eggers gives many facts about the Statue of Liberty such as her height standing 300 feet tall, her body being made of copper that oxidizes when outside, and most importantly, her right foot being off the ground. I was surprised at how much research the author did- and this information is accurate because of the real life pictures, artifacts and resources that the author included in the back of the book.
What moral values and social-political messages (race, gender, religion, class, poverty, environment, immigration, education, homelessness, etc.) are dominant in the text? Does the author foster social consciousness? The social-political message conveyed in each of these books is immigration. In Her Right Foot, the author talks about how the Statue of Liberty is a symbol of welcoming and acceptance for immigrants. In My Two Blankets, the message that is given is immigration and race. I think this fosters social consciousness because this book talks about the struggles of immigrating to a new place and not being able to understand those around you; which is something that many people can relate to. Wishtree also demonstrates several social- political messages including environment, race and immigration. In this story, Samar and her family are immigrants and new to their neigborhood. Some people in their town are angry that they are there, resulting in some conflict throughout the story. The Wishtree, Red, brings the environmental aspect into the story because he is the tree where everyone has left their wishes for hundreds of years. Samara wished for a friend, and the tree helps to get her one, along with the help of the many different animals that find a home within the tree. The tree itself was an image of diversity and acceptance, which is a major theme in the story.
Looking through a Critical Lens…
This spread from Her Right Foot is a set of pages viewed together to show the Statue of Liberty’s facial features laid out across both pages. I chose to share this spread with all of you because of the meaning it has embedded in it that it conveys to the readers. As teachers, we have to look at literature through a critical lens. When looking at this image through a critical lens, I admire the detail in the design of this page. When looking at her face, you can automatically ask so many questions. What are her eyes looking at? Why does her mouth look so serious? What is the significance of the crown she wears? Her crown is a representation of the seven seas, seven continents and the rays of the sun. I think there is a lot to be shown for this. The first thing to take away from this is the idea that all seven seas and continents come together to form ONE world. One world where we can all come together and can be a part of something greater than just ourselves. Another special meaning is that the spikes represent the rays of the sun- something that from any point on this Earth, we can all see. Her eyes are looking forward; showing that she is looking out to sea ready to welcome newcomers and immigrants coming to the United States. Other important things to note are the colors on the page. The dark night sky is something that we ALL look up to at night. The contrast of the blue and the green really makes the face of Lady Liberty stand out and the spread shows her vastness of size. From this one page, we can interpret many of the themes and ideas that this author is trying to convey to us, which is what makes this spread so valuable to the book and the reader themselves.
When I think about My Two Blankets I think about the great image that the “blankets” provide. I think that the author was very strategic in using a blanket as a way to describe the two versions of oneself. I think in life we all have “blankets” that are our comfort, and our refuge. In this story, Cartwheel struggles to understand and make sense of her new life, but with the comfort that her “old blanket” gives her she is able to embrace a “new blanket” in her new home. I also think we are able to learn a powerful lesson about friendship and diversity through this story. When I think about this, I think that the author made an intentional decision to make one of the characters a white child, and the other character a person of color. First of all, children are so innocent; so I think this exudes the purest example of friendship. I think this speaks volumes to the way that humans should live- putting aside differences to help one another and accept all people.
Creating a Text Set; how are these all connected?
As classroom teachers, it is really important that we have texts in our classrooms that can be used in a text set for when we are doing a unit of study on a particular subject. A text set is a collection of books/ other types of text that are related through a common theme, topic, idea or concept. Each of the texts we read this week; Her Right Foot, My Two Blankets and Wishtree are all considered to be a text set because they are connected based on the themes of diversity, immigration, and acceptance/ welcoming. Some of the major themes in these stories are the same, but there are also other aspects of each text that are different. When using a text set in your classroom, we want to give the students the opportunity to grapple with comparing and contrasting the texts to get a feel for how they are related and how they are not. For example, with this text set, two of the books we read were children’s picture books, while one of them was a chapter book. Another difference was that My Two Blankets and Wishtree told actual stories about characters who had immigrated and moved to another country where they were very different from the culture there. In Her Right Foot, you learn a lot about the history of the Statue of Liberty and what she symbolizes in relation to immigration and diversity. It is really important to ask ourselves and our students what each author says to make us think about what the other authors are saying. Then finally we can have our students evaluate their own thinking of the text and their opinions on these books. I really appreciated each of these texts. I loved the history and the witty writing style in Her Right Foot. I would love to do a social studies unit in my class one day and use this as a supporting text. Same with My Two Blankets. I thought that this book had a powerful message about diversity, “fitting in” and friendship. I would use this to talk about diversity and relationship building in my classroom. And Wishtree…. oh how I LOVED this book. I loved how we read the story through the perspective of a tree. I had never read anything like that before. I also really appreciated the strong message that this book conveys about acceptance of diverse cultures. And how at the end, when everyone came together, animals and humans, the tree was left to stay. I will for sure be placing all of these on the shelves in my own classroom!
Curricular Connections- How can you use this in the classroom?
As teachers in North Carolina, it is essential that we stock our classroom libraries with text that can support our curriculum standards and the objectives that we have to teach. In the upper elementary grades, there are social studies standards that align really well with this text. In grades 4, 5 and 6, students are learning about historical events, migration, immigration, patterns, and cultures. This is a great text that you can use to support these because the Statue of Liberty is a symbol for all of those topics. Teachers can pack lesson plans full of these standards when reading this book to their students. This book is an informal history lesson in itself! From the beginning of construction of Lady Liberty, to the messages that her right foot conveys, students are introduced to greater ideas such as immigration, freedom and welcoming/ acceptance. Using the themes of this book, we can teach students the history of why people immigrated to the United States, and why they still do now. This book can subtly give children complex ideas to think about through a lackadaisical children’s story about an American icon.
My Two Blankets tells a story of a refugee girl and her aunt who leave their country because of war. I think this is really applicable to many situations in our world today. There are a few standards in NC curriculum that want students to understand the push/pull factors when people migrate. A push factor in this story was that Cartwheel and her Aunt had to flee their country because of the war. You can also use this book to teach the beauty of friendship. In lower elementary grades, there are social studies standards that teach students how to build positive relationships and how to be a good friend. I feel like this book could be used to teach our students how to be good friends and help others when they need it.
Wishtree also offers several ways to tie in curriculum. As with the other two books, this book offers a chance to include social studies standards about immigration and the views that people have on it. This book also offers the opportunity to include science standards. This book includes a powerful message about the environment and nature. The Wishtree, Red, provides a home for other animals in the environment. This could be a great time to talk about science vocabulary and how important trees like Red are to certain communities.
I really appreciated the views from Amy Edwards, author of WOW Stories: Connections from the Classroom, about how to incorporate multiple perspectives into our classrooms. I think there is a lot to be said about Democratic teaching and including the perspectives of others in their teaching. I want to be able to have my students think critically and express their thinking as well as listening to others and accepting the way that they thought about something too. Using these texts, we could do literature circles, like she suggests, to get our students thinking about and discussing the big ideas and themes from this text set. In this sense I think we are able to introduce our students to real world problems and let them grapple with how this applies to their lives and the world they live in like Edwards says. Likewise, I also think there are some important takeaways from Jon Callow’s article, “Nobody Spoke Like I Did.” Callow argues that we can use children’s picture books to use in our classroom to convey these powerful messages about immigration and get students to interpret the meanings. He says that we can use these texts as a way to get our students to understand the issues with immigration and the struggles that people go through as they accustom to a new place. Something else I really took away from this was that by reading this book to our students, we might be able to reach a student or allow for students to make connections to the way the character, Cartwheel, was feeling in the book to their own feelings at some point in their young lives.
North Carolina State Standards
RI.4.3 Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text, including what happened and why, based on specific information in the text. (ELA standard)
RI.4.8 Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text. (ELA standard)
5.G.1.4 Exemplify migration within or immigration to the United States in order to identify push and pull factors (why people left/why people came.) (Social Studies standard)
5.C.1 Understand how increased diversity resulted from migration, settlement patterns and economic development in the United States. (Social Studies standard)
References:
Callow, J. (2017). “Nobody Spoke Like I Did” Picture Books, Critical Literacy and Global Context . The Reading Teacher, 71(2), 231–237.
Edwards, A. (2019). WOW Stories: Connections from the Classroom . Worlds of Words.
Ms. Wild's Thoughts 